Female newsreader on RTE1, 14.00 yesterday

DublinWriter

I meant to post this yesterday as the incident may have been fresh in many peoples' minds but I totally forgot.

Did anyone hear the 2pm news bulletin on RTE Radio One yesterday? (Wednesday).

The female newsreader stumbled over almost every third word and sounded genuinely pissed off to be even doing the job in the first place.

Her delivery was so bad that it distracted me from my usual 2pm business of belly-filling and made me almost drop my jaw in disbelief.

Did anyone else catch it?

DMC

There was a news bulletin at 2pm on Radio 1?

mike65

There is NEVER a news slot at 2pm as it would take up moaning time on Liveline.

Mike.

mike65

Dublin Writer it was the 3 o'clock news (late lunch!), and she does sound like someone who was told 2 mins before broadcast she'd drawn the short straw.

you can hear it hear
http://dynamic.rte.ie/quickaxs/209-rte-mooney-Wednesday.smil

Mike.

FlutterinBantam

Siún Ní Gearilt... usually does the news in Irish...

Aaaah jaysus after a bad start she recovered well:p

Spyral

not as bad as the one on rte1 news on the telly on monday. oh god, stuttered, then on tuesday the lines they ahd "gardai investigators are investigating......" *facepalm*

radioman

Maybe she usually reads the news this way in Irish too, but nobody ever notices...

flogen

radioman wrote:

Maybe she usually reads the news this way in Irish too, but nobody ever notices...

If Irish is her first language on a daily basis she might not be as polished in her delivery of English.

I can't remember his name but a reporter talking to the Six-One news the other day in relation to the Galway plane crash was equally jittery, he was a Nuacht correspondent too.

That said it does seem like she was given a second's notice to get on air.

Ray777

In fairness, Siun Nic Gearailt occasionally reads the regular bulletins on RTÉ1 during the daytime, and does a far better job of it than Sharon *cough* Ní *quick gulp of water* Bheolain or Aengus *erm... erm... erm... eh...* MacGrianna.

My guess is that whoever was supposed to be reading the 3 news last Wednesday, lost track of time and went AWOL to answer the phone or have a slash. Siun Nic Gearailt happened to be passing in the corridor at 14:59 and an editor ran out and grabbed her and said, "Here, read that. You're on in twenty seconds".

brayblue24

Didn't catch that bulletin but can anybody tell me is it mandatory when going for a job reading the sports news on RTE 2FM that you don't pronounce your "th"s. I'm not sure how much more I can lsiten to somebody finishing "turd" or playing for "De Dubs"....

funktastic

Em she hardly screws it up at all. Stutters a bit at the start, so what?

Dudess

Excuses or no excuses, it's diabolical. "The Fine Gael... eh... deputy health spokesperson" :rolleyes:
She also sounds like she's just woken up - slight croak in her voice, speech slurring, no authority whatsoever in her voice. Ridiculous.

nice1franko

The ones who pronounce gardai like "gorthee" are worse!

FlutterinBantam

How would you pronounce it???

funktastic

She was probably given it at the last moment and it could have had errors on it - as the write ups for news bulletins are known to have occasionally. She rarely reads the news in English and could have had little/no time to look over it. I mean Tony Fenton at the same time on Today FM sounds a million times worse, rabbiting on in his pesudo-American Bingo-caller/used car salesman voice. Prick. Yeah he isn't a newsreader but he makes me want to set fire to my ears.

flogen

FlutterinBantam wrote:

How would you pronounce it???

Well if I'm not mistaken (and I may well be):
The letter 'a' in Irish is pronounced like 'ah' (where as 'á' is 'aw', like in Dáil, which is pronounced dawl and not Doyle like some news readers say)
And 'í' is pronounced like the English 'e' (I think 'i' is pronounced ih').

So Gardaí would be gar-dee.

Obviously the dialect dictates the exact pronunciation, but to the best of my knowledge no dialect pronounces the letter 'a' as the 'o'-type sound that would allow for Gor-dee.

A gaelgoir will probably swiftly correct me, but that's my understanding of it.

On the day of the election, actually, someone texted into Pat Kenny's show complaining about the failure by presenters and politicians in the pronunciation of various political parties, namely Fianna Fáil (Feeanna Fawl) and Fine Gael (Fihne Gayle). In some cases politicians would mis-pronounce their own party names, saying something like 'Fihne Fawl' or 'Feeanna Gayle'.

(sorry for going off topic and not using the proper phonology symbols... the post would have benefited from them but I don't have a clue how they work)

nice1franko

^^^
what he said. see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garda_S%C3%ADoch%C3%A1na

edit - also the dialect is the southside (of dublin) dialect, roish.

gucci

in fairness theres a recording of bertie ahern in the news and he stutters and stammers way more

mike65

I taught Gardai was pronounced "the filth"

Mike.

FlutterinBantam

flogen wrote:

Well if I'm not mistaken (and I may well be):
The letter 'a' in Irish is pronounced like 'ah' (where as 'á' is 'aw', like in Dáil, which is pronounced dawl and not Doyle like some news readers say)
And 'í' is pronounced like the English 'e' (I think 'i' is pronounced ih').

So Gardaí would be gar-dee.

Obviously the dialect dictates the exact pronunciation, but to the best of my knowledge no dialect pronounces the letter 'a' as the 'o'-type sound that would allow for Gor-dee.

A gaelgoir will probably swiftly correct me, but that's my understanding of it.

On the day of the election, actually, someone texted into Pat Kenny's show complaining about the failure by presenters and politicians in the pronunciation of various political parties, namely Fianna Fáil (Feeanna Fawl) and Fine Gael (Fihne Gayle). In some cases politicians would mis-pronounce their own party names, saying something like 'Fihne Fawl' or 'Feeanna Gayle'.

(sorry for going off topic and not using the proper phonology symbols... the post would have benefited from them but I don't have a clue how they work)

Not too bad.... to cut to the chase ,using Munster Irish, the "a" in irish is pronounced "aw" as in "Gawrdai". The is also the "d" sound. Its not a "hard d" as in "dee" but as in "dhee" So... expanding on that I would opine the correct pronouncation is"Gawrdhai".

I you examine "madra" irish for dog... it's not pronounced in the English idiom "Mahdrah" but in the irish idiom "Mohdhrah.

As a side point thats why people from the north throw in the "H" after "R" as in the "sthruggle for peace"
Its a throwback from the old irish stuff.

next time Noel Dempsey is on the air listen out... "strhaight" as opposed to the more common usage "strait"

Check it out;)

flogen

FlutterinBantam wrote:

Not too bad.... to cut to the chase ,using Munster Irish, the "a" in irish is pronounced "aw" as in "Gawrdai". The is also the "d" sound. Its not a "hard d" as in "dee" but as in "dhee" So... expanding on that I would opine the correct pronouncation is"Gawrdhai".

Ah right - as I said, Ní Gaelgoir mé so I'm not going to contradictor argue.

That said, "Gawrdai" is still quite different from the "Gorrdee" pronunciation used so often in RTÉ (amongst others).
As was pointed out, it's the D4 equivalent (just like the way they say "Dort" for "Dart" - they replace "a" with "o"). Interestingly enough even fluent (and so-called "native") speakers like Sharon Ní Bheolain say "Gorrdai" and it's a bit annoying.

Milktrolley

Not sure if it's a thread-worthy offence to be honest, but I will agree that she does sound tired/pissed off. Her deep breaths sound more like sighs. Siún generally is quite good, plus she seems to have better GAA prediction skills than some of her colleagues (Linky).

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